What is Duty-Free Shopping?

Duty-Free shopping in Barbados is shopping without the importation tax. All luxury items brought into Barbados are subject to the import tax; and if purchased by non-Barbadians, who are leaving the country with the goods, the importation tax does not apply. Hence “duty-free” shopping.

All of the shopping districts in Barbados have duty free stores, duty free areas or duty free prices listed on the specific items.

— Jewellery
— Clothing
— Cosmetics
— Appliances

Each piece for sale has a tag with three different rates on them:

— LP BDS$ which means local price in Barbados dollars,
— DF BDS$ saying duty-free cost in Barbados dollars, and the third is
— DF US$ which means the tax-free amount in US dollars.

All you need to be able to purchase merchandise at the duty-free price is your passport and plane ticket showing when you are leaving the island. A receipt form is printed up in triplicate so that the merchant has a copy, and you get two; one of which is to be deposited into a box at the airport when you are leaving. This copy goes to the government agencies responsible for refunding the merchant with the tax he or she has already paid for the item you have bought.

Certain things cannot be purchased duty-free, such as video sets, home computers, and food. While you can buy only alcohol and cigarettes duty-free, these can only be collected from the airport as you leave, to ensure that you do not consume your duty-free goods while in Barbados.

All in all, it works out very well for everyone. For duty-free shopping in Barbados, you can check out our capital city of Bridgetown as well as Holetown and Speightstown, not to mention other stores scattered islandwide.

So whenever you are going out to shop in Barbados, it’s a good idea to carry your passport and ticket with you since you never know when the opportunity for duty-free shopping may pop up – and nobody likes to miss a discount.

Jewellery

You will find many, many duty-free jewelry shops in Barbados. There are many shops such as Diamonds International and Colombian Emeralds on Broad Street giving you the convenience of exploring what’s on offer all on one street. With some of their duty-free discounts, you could save up to 60% on diamond jewelry.

You will also find duty free jewelry in the West Coast Mall, in the new Limegrove Lifestyle Centre and some of the hotels such as The Crane resort, Sandy Lane, and The Hilton.

If it is a watch that you are after – Diamonds International has two (2) locations in Bridgetown, one of which sells timepieces such as Hublot, Longines, Piaget, Cartier, Breitling, Bvlgari, Chopard, Dior, IWC, Montblanc, and Panerai.

You can also pay The Royal Shop in Bridgetown a visit. Here you will find a large selection of designer watches at duty-free prices such as Chopard, Maurice Lacroix, Tissot, Longines, Movado, Swiss Army and Esquire. The Royal Shop is also the exclusive and authorized dealer of IOSi David Yurman and Marco Biego.

The Limegrove Lifestyle Centre

This development opened in 2011 and is a beautiful, state-of-the-art shopping center in Holetown on the West Coast. Here you will find many designer clothes to choose from at duty-free prices such as A|X Armani Exchange, Louis Vuitton, Ralph Lauren, Bulgari, Cartier, and Jaeger. Here you can ‘shop ’till you drop’ and then relax in one of the lovely cafes in this luxurious shopping complex.

Cave Shepherd

The best place to find duty free bargains is Cave Shepherd which is a chain of duty-free stores of which the largest is in Bridgetown. There are additional branches in the West Coast Mall, the Sunset Mall, at Vista Worthing, and at the Bridgetown Cruise Terminal.

Cave Shepherd in Bridgetown is the sole provider of Mac makeup. Here you can find duty free designer labels such as Ralph Lauren, Billabong, Reef, Quiksilver, Roxy, Van, Givenchy, Tommy. There is also duty-free jewelry in here.